Kensington Swan's view on aspects of the construction industry

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The media’s housing crisis management – thanks, but no thanks

If you’re like me and have a keen interest in current events you would have witnessed the tide of articles published by New Zealand’s main media outlets about stories of millennials picking themselves up by their bootstraps and buying their first homes.

Sure for the most part a lot of the stories are from years before the current housing climate, sure they feature exceptional financial assistance from relatives both living and dead, and obviously the market is cooler outside of the major city centres – but there must be something to take away from these articles? Of course there is. The tips range from the unrealistic (just live rent free at your parents for six months of the year while you rent out your pad to people who can actually afford the mortgage repayments) to the absurd (just live on a diet of mayo and lettuce sandwiches for a couple years). The latter is particularly bleak given comments by David Seymour MP in a recent address:

“The median house price for New Zealand went up $47,000 in the past year. You’d have had to give up 9,400 lattes, or 26 a day just to keep up with the increase. In Auckland the increase was $70,000, or 350 kilograms of smashed avocado.”

While I’ve spent more time than I care to admit clicking on these articles (much to the offending outlet’s joy) just so I can complain about them (much to my colleague’s annoyance) there are those that have taken with journalistic fervour to examine this irksome trend.

As an antidote to the onslaught take a moment to read this blog by Russell Brown delving into the issue and this thorough analysis of the epidemic by the folks at The Spinoff.

As for me, for the time being I’ll be passing on the mayo and lettuce sandwiches in favour of 26 almond milk lattes a day and consuming my body weight in smashed avo on sourdough.